Pages

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Eye on Japan: All about Thundurus EX / Deoxys EX

Deoxys EX ends the era of Mewtwo EX.

Hello everyone!As I made my trip to Japan, I
had the privilege to take a close look on the Japanese tournament playing and
metagame. I asked from you in my Facebook and Twitter, which article would you like to have first: an
article on the most played deck of the current format in Japan (Thundurus
EX/Deoxys EX) or an article about the differences between Japanese and western
tournaments. You were very active in the social media (thanks for that!) and it
was a close race which Thundurus EX/Deoxys EX ended up winning with a small
margin.

As you know, I faced this deck 4 times in the tournament I played in Tokyo and
all of them had small differences, so I’m pretty comfortable talking about the
deck and how it works. I’ll start by giving the list, I think is the best and
then explain the strategy and cards of the deck one-by-one.

I know this is very early as the BW8, which this deck mostly consists of, will
be released in May. Anyways, let’s roll!

I think this deck
is once again very loyal to the very philosophy of Japanese deck building. It’s
VERY straightforward, but at the same time it has a few tricks on its sleeve.
Not to mention that this deck doesn’t really care about decks like Hammertime,
which can Hammerspam them to death if played carelessly. All of these things
are very usual within Japanese decks.

Anyways, there are two Pokémon you want to open with, Thundurus EX and Kyurem. Who
you like to open with depends pretty much on your opening hand your opponent’s
deck. Kyurem is able to hit T1 30 to the active and one benched Pokémon as long
as you have Colress Machine in your hand. At the same time Thundurus EX can
only hit for 30 and some extra damage, but it is able to load your attackers
with its first attack. More often you want to open with Thundurus EX and I
would say that it’s the main starter of this deck.

There isn’t any big trick in the early game. Just get the Deoxys EX to the
bench as soon as possible and start pounding high damage with your Thundurus EX
and Kyurem from T1 onwards. You usually have the 2-3 Deoxys EXs on your bench,
so Thundurus is often hitting 50-60 damage while Kyurem can be able to hit whopping
150 damage only with 3 energy.

If this damage isn’t enough, you’re able to add even more damage with
Hypnotoxic Beam, which can be combined with Virbank City Gym for an additional
30 between turns. With quick math, you can count that when hitting with Kyurem
120 + 3 Deoxys EXs + Poison and Virbank City Gym, you get the magical number of
180, which is able to OHKO every single EX Pokémon in the format! Not only it’s
highly devastating, but it’s also a reality to hit it in T3 or even in T2!

In the late game, you’ll able to wreak havoc with Scramble Switch combined with
Snorlax or Lugia EX, which I’ll get later on in this entry. Overall, the deck
is all about speed and it’s very consistent. You’re able to finish many games
very quickly.

Card Choices

As always, I’ll
provide the translations of the cards when analyze. Thanks to Pokebeach.com for
providing the analysis!

Thundurus EX is the main starter of this deck and can be considered as the main
attackers of this deck as well. It has decent HP; but most of all it has great
first attack that helps you get prizes in the early game while energy
accelerating your supporting attackers. You want to get Thundurus EX to the
active spot in T1 and start Thunder Knuckling. With Thunder Knuckle, you are
able to make even cards like Snorlax able to attack. It’s also worth mentioning
that Thunder Knuckle can get ANY energy cards from the discard pile, which is
simply huge as there isn’t that many cards in the format that can get special
energy cards like DCE back from discard pile. And we all know just how good
getting an extra DCE can be.

Deoxys EX

Deoxys-EX - Psychic - HP170
Basic Pokemon (Team Plasma)Ability: Power Connect
All of your Team Plasma Pokemon (excluding Deoxys-EX) do 10 more damage to the
Defending Pokemon.[P][C] Spiral Force: 30+
damage. If this Pokemon has a Plasma Energy attached to it, this attack does 30
more damage for each Energy attached to the Defending Pokemon.When Pokemon-EX has been
Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.Weakness: Psychic (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

Deoxys EX is this deck’s support. It just sits on the bench and increases the
damage output of your other attackers. That is until your opponent is crazy
enough to attack with Mewtwo EX or with something that has a huge amount of energy. Even though Deoxys EX doesn’t add to its own
damage with its ability, it still OHKOs even a two-energy Mewtwo EX thus making
it even better Mewtwo EX counter than Mewtwo EX itself! Not to mention that it causes a real headache for every single attacker that has a hug energy cost. Even though Deoxys EX is a decent attacker, you don't often use it due the fact that it needs 2 energy and one of them is Plasma and another Psychic energy.

I believe that when BW8
is released and Deoxys EX with it, Mewtwo EX will see a huge decrease in play.
I played Mewtwo EX in my Hammertime in the tournament in Tokyo and didn’t even
want to play it to play, because I noticed that everything was hitting with 1
or 2 energy and no one was weak to Psychic. This will be the end for the tyrannical
season of Mewtwo EX.

Kyurem is the another early game attacker alongside with Thundurus EX. It’s
very good, because it can spread the damage in the early turns. This gives an
opening for Lugia EX to finish up the game. It’s also good to notice that
Kyurem is a non-EX Pokémon, which this deck needs desperately in case of
Sigilyph or Terrakion, which destroys Thundurus EXs.

Kyurem doesn’t look on the paper that good. However, when it comes to this
deck, you should never look just the numbers behind the attacks, but the whole
picture. Frost Spear usually hits for AT least 50 to the active and 30 the
bench. Blizzard Burn is able to OHKO even the most fearsome EXs with a single
blow when combined with Poison and Virbank City Gym.

Don’t even try to build this deck without Kyurem, because even though it may
seem good, it’s at least as good as every other Pokémon in this deck. It’s one
of the key ingredient if you want to have a chance against all the decks of the
format.

Snorlax is in this deck only, because I was able to witness the brute power of
Snorlax as it OHKOed my full HP Eviolited Darkrai EX in Tokyo…It’s just crazy
how much damage can Snorlax do. Granted, it takes 5 energy, but once you get
the 5 energy on it, it takes 2 prizes like nobody’s business. You rarely attach
manually the energy to Snorlax or even attach them with Thundurus EX. Your best
way of getting the energy on Snorlax is simply use Scramble Switch and gather
all the energy on your active Pokémon and move them to Snorlax. This way it
will surprise your opponent and you will able to hit at least once with Snorlax
(which is often enough, because Snorlax is your late-game finisher).

Lugia EX was a standard tech in every single deck I saw in Tokyo. And why
shouldn’t it be, it can finish up the game with only one attack even if you
have 3 prizes left! Lugia EX functions the same way as Snorlax. You want it to
be a surprise (ok, it’s never a really surprise since it’s a staple tech),
because if you play it down to your bench, it’s not only 2 easy prizes for your
opponent, but it also useless unless timed correctly.

Lugia EX is probably one of the most hyped cards of the next set, but I believe
that this will be the first deck that can really harness the devastating power
of Lugia EX. Lugia EX very difficult to get into play properly and for example
against Hammertime, it’s impossible. Lugia EX is a card that needs a lot of
skill to play correctly and I think this deck can do very well without this
even though it can be considered as a staple in Japan.

Professor Juniper, Bianca and NNothing surprising here. Maybe the only interesting thing I noticed was the
surprisingly low amount of Ns the deck played. This is probably due Colress,
which surpasses N when it comes to the raw draw force. So far, N has been the
only shuffle&draw for us for a long time, but now Colress challenges N,
which has led to the decrease of Ns in decks. If we take a look back to the
season of 2005-2006, only some decks played 4 Rocket’s Admins. We will probably
see a decrease of N amounts in west as well.

Colress

Colress – Trainer
Supporter (Team Plasma)Shuffle your hand into your
deck. Then, draw an amount of cards up to the number of Pokemon on both your
and your opponent’s Bench.You may play only 1 Supporter
card during your turn (before your attack).

To be honest, I don’t know what to think about Colress. First it seemed broken,
then it seemed horrible and now I’m somewhere in between with it. All I will so
for now is that it fits perfectly in THIS deck, because this deck wants to have
a bench full of Deoxys EXs as soon as possible. The decks’ strategy really
supports Colress and that’s why I believe it was so popular in this deck. I
tried to keep my bench at minimum with Hammertime against these decks (2
Pokémon benched) and still they draw 7 cards. Most decks are forced to play
even more Basics on the bench, so Colress is very efficient in this deck. In
general, I think Colress is a mediocre card, but in this deck it’s great.

Skyla

Skyla is a good card, but in this deck it has a big role at two points of the
game.

The first turn: Search for Plasma
Ball, Hypnotoxic Beam or for a Virbank City Gym and donk the opponent.

The last turn: Search for the
Scramble Switch and end the game in a cool fashion with Snorlax/Lugia EX.

I was especially afraid for the first turn situation in two of the games as
they played Skyla in the first turn, but thankfully I wasn’t donked. However, I’m
sure that if someone still plays stage2 decks and weak Basic decks when this
deck comes out, a lot of donks will happen thanks to Skyla.

Plasma Ball - Ultra Ball

Plasma Ball – Trainer
Item (Team Plasma)Search your deck for a Team
Plasma Pokemon card, reveal it, and add it to your hand. Shuffle your deck
afterwards.You can use any number of
Item cards during your turn.

Well, it’s kind of obvious that both of the cards are very good in this deck,
but the question is why to run Ultra Balls and not only Plasma Balls as you
wouldn’t need to discard from Plasma Balls? Well, obviously the answer is that
you WANT to discard cards (energy) in the early turns of the game to get the
most out of Thundurus EX’s first attack. You have to find the balance between
Plasma Balls and Ultra Balls, but from what I saw, most players were settled
with 2-2 split. It gives you Ultra Ball access with Skyla and it gives you
Plasma Ball access when you can’t afford discarding any cards.

Colress Machine

Colress Machine – Trainer
Item (Team Plasma)Search your deck for a
Plasma Energy and attach it to one of your Team Plasma Pokemon. Shuffle your
deck afterwards.You can use any number of
Item cards during your turn.

Colress Machine is the Energy Gain of Plasma Pokémon. The difference is that
Colress Machine searches for energy. Plasma Energy. Plasma Energy is very
important to Plasma Pokémon, because some Plasma Pokémon need them to do the
necessary damage. Good examples of this would be Deoxys EX, which hits only for
30 if you don’t have a Plasma Energy on it. The same goes with Lugia EX, except
Lugia EX can’t even attack without Plasma Energy!

Colress Machine is a must for this deck also, because you want to get your
Kyurem attacking as fast as possible and with Colress Machine, you can enable
Kyurem hitting in T1. 2-3 Colress Machines will become a staple for every
single Plasma deck that will ever be played.

Pokémon Catcher

Well, it’s a straightforward deck, so 4 Catchers is a must. This deck can
destroy any slow decks’ set-up with correctly played Catchers.

Hypnotoxic Beam - Virbank City Gym

Poison Hypnotic Beam –
Trainer
Item (Team Plasma)The Defending Pokemon is
now Poisoned. Flip a coin. If heads, the Defending Pokemon is also Asleep.You can use any number of
Item cards during your turn.

Virbank City Gym – Trainer
StadiumIf a Pokemon is Poisoned,
place two more damage counters on it between turns.This card stays in play
when you play it. Discard this card if another Stadium card comes into play. If
another card with the same name is in play, you can’t play this card.

As this combo will be analyzed to death once Plasma Gale will be released, I
won’t get too in-depth with this. As you may know, most Japanese decks play 4-2
split of these cards. I was scared of it as I didn’t run a Keldeo EX or
Stadiums, but I noticed that it wasn’t that good against Darkrai EX as Darkrai
EX gets to retreat for free. Granted, it adds 30 damage to the deck’s attack,
so it’s naturally VERY important for this deck, but I don’t believe these cards
will become a staple for every deck. They are good, but some decks (especially
stage2 decks) can’t really afford playing them.

Float Stoneand Switch

Float Stone - Trainer
ItemPokemon Tool: Each Pokemon
can have only 1 Pokemon Tool attached to it at any time.The Pokemon this card is
attached to has no retreat cost.You can use any number of
Item cards during your turn.

Deoxys EX sits on the bench and has a retreat of 2, sounds legit? No it doesn’t.
That’s why you need enough Float Stones and Switches to retreat your Deoxys EX
from the active spot EVERY TIME it gets Catchered. You really can’t afford to
get stuck with Deoxys EX to the active spot as its 2 free prizes for most of
your opponent’s Pokémon. Not to mention that Float Stone is a MUST if you decide
to play Snorlax as I did.
Scramble Switch

Scramble Switch – Trainer
ItemSwitch your Active Pokemon
with one of your Benched Pokemon. Then, you may move any number of Energy
attached to that Pokemon to the new Active Pokemon.ACE SPEC: You can’t have
more than 1 ACE SPEC card in your deck.You can use any number of
Item cards during your turn.

Scramble Switch is the last-turn card of this deck. Sometimes uou may be forced
to use it before the last turn, if you’re forced to use a Juniper and you have
Scramble Switch in your hand. However, you want to save Scramble Switch for the
last turn, because it’s your only real way to energy accelerate your finisher
attackers – Lugia EX and Snorlax. Scramble Switch was the only ACE Spec I saw
Japanese players’ playing in their Plasma decks, so I believe it will become a
real staple in the west as well. And why wouldn’t it – when timed correctly, it’s
the most broken ACE Spec of the format!

Energy

The energy lines of this deck are very challenging, because you want to
play 4 of anything, but can’t find space for it. The energy lines in this list
are completely copied from what I saw in Japan. The 7 “Lighting” energy was
always enough for Thundurus EX even though I ran Hammertime. That was probably
the thing that really surprised me as in theory it seems a very low amount, but
trust me with this.

The deck doesn’t necessarily need DCES, but the reason why I ran them is
because a) I run Snorlax b) It gives you more options to retreat with Deoxys EX
than just Switch, Scramble Switch and Float Stone. DCE is by far the best
energy in the format and as long as you can take the advantage of it, it’s
worth playing.

Conclusion

So, what can I say. The deck is going to be a tier1
contender, but one thing that really annoys me is the price of the deck in the
west if Thundurus EX or Deoxys EX won’t be released as Promos. If that doesn’t
happen before Worlds, it’s going to be the most expensive deck of the format BY
FAR. If the box ratios don’t change I guess the deck will end up costing about 500
dollars. It’s one of the main reasons why I HOPE the deck doesn’t become the
dominating BDIF. However, no matter what I hope, the deck is highly competitive
and – in my opinion – has enough firepower and versatility to win even the World
Championships.

In all its straightforwardness, the deck is a good play no matter what age
group you play in. It’s enough for a Junior player, but at the same time it can
be made into a competitive Master deck. All the Juniors I saw in Japan were
playing the deck, and I will be surprised if this deck doesn’t win Worlds in
the Juniors age category – it’s so destructive in all its simplicity.

Anyways, I hope this answered all the questions you had about the deck. You
asked for the strategy, but in the end, the deck doesn’t have a real strategy.
It adopts against its opponent’s and since it’s such a straightforward deck, it’s
not rocket science. However, if you have any questions about the strategy,
possible techs or the decklist itself, feel free to let ask anything. I’m
always ready to discuss about the deck!

Esa, i must know, is Lugia EX going to be a good card in the state championship format and if so, what deck/decks is the card featured in? I saw the Japan Autumn Battle Carnival results and no Lugia EX decks made top 4 in any of the events. Is Lugia EX good or is it just hype? When it was released in Japan, was it good and what decks did the Japanese players play Lugia EX in?

Aaron TM: Not doomed forever, but I believe that we'll see a huge decrease of Mewtwo EXs after this deck becomes popular. As I said 2 energy Mewtwo EX will be OHKOed too easily by Deoxys EX, while you can't OHKO it back with 2 energy. This makes all the difference in the world. I played the Mewtwo EX in my Hammertime and found it completely useless in this metagame.

And yeah, I decided to do an article about this deck even though the prices will probably skyrocket since it's not rocket science anyway. They are the main two Pokémon of the set, so anyone can really come up with this combo. And as I don't ever have enough money to buy this deck anyways, I didn't mind doing an article about it...

Anonymous2: Cobalion EX slows the deck down, but doesn't really destroy it. You can attach the energy + take energy back from discard pile with Thundurus EX. And you also have Deoxys EXs to speed up the doom of Cobalion EXs. It sure is problematic, but not a doom of this deck as the deck is so adaptable.

Arj Khadse: I wouldn't have against it as long as the cards are affordable! LuxChomp mirrors were very skill-intense in my opinion.

Arley123: Kyurem is enough to deal with Quad Sigilyph. Not to mention Snorlax. Quad Sigilyph dies after this deck is released...

Anonymous4: True, but the cards would have become very expensive nonetheless. I didn't hype Darkrai EX and eventually everyone found out that it's too good and the price soared regardless of my comments. And thankfully my blog isn't that popular that everyone would follow it!

Anonymous8: The simple reason for no Frozen City is that Japanese didn't play it! My point of the article was to show a Japanese list of this deck, not mess aroudn with it myself. I too see potential in Frozen City in this deck, but still see a bunch of weaknesses with it and don't know if really wanted to play it.

Theo Seeds: I believe you can, but Lugia EX isn't really that good. It's a good finisher especially in this deck, but the more I test the more I think it's probably the most overhyped card of the upcoming set. Not really worth building the deck around Lugia EX, if you want to be competitive.

Anonymous9: AS I said, Lugia EX overhyped. I don't really see it in any other winning decks' except in this deck.

perupopo: True, but on the otherhand Hammertime/Garbodor will have serious issues with Landorus/Mewtwo EX variants. The metagame is RPS all the way.

Thanks a lot for the comments and questions everyone! Keep em' coming.

Sure, the mirror would be based on actual skill rather than luck sacking, but I meant by it being LuxChomp by it being expensive. Except this will probably be even more expensive (hard to believe) if none of the cards are in tins. And if they are, the format will be varients of this. The donking capability is upsetting too, I hate donks, they ruins the game. Time to counter deck lol

What other decks are thriving in japan though, from your tournament report it seems like thundurus/deoxys is a clear favorite. Did you happen to see any other competitive decks will you were in japan? if so id love to know what they are.

Why prioritize switch over float stone? Only reasons I can think of are other tools (which this doesn't have), needing to switch multiple times per turn like Chandelure or Eels (this doesn't), or Snorlax being wildly popular (seems more techy and only useful late game), so I don't get it. Even if you get tool scrapper'd you get the same use out of it as you would with a switch. I could maybe see using escape rope, but I really don't get the use of lots of switch without maxing float stone.

Actually this deck does need switches because of Kuyerem. His attack says that he cant attack next turn so sometimes you need to retreat him to bench and switch him back to active spot to get rid of that "cant attack this turn effect"

How could you do 180 shot with Lugia? 160 with 4 Deoxzs and 2 Plus Powers? Just on that way because Hipnotic Laser doesn´t be part of the attack or Damage done by Plasma Gale and his ability. You are making Hype, beacuse you just show one deck now I have to pay 60 dollares for one Deoxys-EX. Show 10 decks until that set comes out and make LOL.

Great deck but will lose to a few Enhanced Hammer techs.Also Landorus EX could damage this deck allot.I think maybe if there was a way to somehow replace the spec energy with basic, that would be better.

Arj Khadse: True, but it only considers Nationals and Worlds and when it comes to those tournaments, every Worlds' competitor really should have the resources to get the cards needed for the deck. In the end, it's WORLD Championships. Even if I don't own the cards, I'm sure I can loan them from other Finnish players if I get to Worlds.

Zarco: Great question, but you must remember that there is also this heavily played card called Hypnotoxic Laser that puts your Pokémon into asleep!

Anonymous1: I think I never mentioned that Lugia could do 180 damage? I was talking about Kyurem when talking about 180 damage if I remember correctly.

Tyler: Yeah, of course a counter deck for this will be created if it becomes too dominant, but the question is does it become dominant in the west?

Anonymous2: I saw 2 Blastoise/Keldeo EXs in the tournament, but I believe both of them went 2-2.

Mark C. Not quite yet. Probably due the fact that the metagame was very immature when I got there.

Anonyous3: No problem at all! For a moment, I really thought I had missed Catcher xD

Question. Does Deoxys EX's attack have the same ruling as Mewtwo EX's X-ball or Cobalion NVIs energy press? The attack Deoxys has matches NVI Cobalions energy press, which does 20 for each individual energy card, not the amount of energy attached like Mewtwo EX.

Wouldn't Keldeo EX be a good tech for this. It's got Rush In for those Deoxys, coverage over Landorus, benefits from Blends. Though i guess the main hitch is that it isnt a Team Plasma pokemon and therefore wouldnt benefit from Thundurus. But it could be another Scramble Switch option. Idk just a thought.